Kony 2012: A lesson of justice

Back at the beginning of the semester, my English 9 students learned of the Invisible Children organization in a TED Talks video (another great resource for the classroom!) and of Joseph Kony. Last week a student sent me an email with this link and insisted I watch it. So I did. And then I showed it to my students....

If you listen to the news or have Facebook or Twitter, you've probably heard about Kony 2012. The video went viral shortly after it was posted on YouTube. It's extremely compelling and explains the movement in a way that a four year old can understand. My students watched it today and were engaged. We're studying social change and injustice/justice right now, so it fit in perfectly with our unit. But I also used it as a way to teach writing tips. The video is compelling for many reasons, but we talked today about how it's compelling because it's honest, it's current, and it includes what we call in room 116 'power lines.' These all happen to be marks of good writing, too!

I noticed today that the New York Times Learning Network also created a blog post about a few different ways to include this video in your lessons. It's probably not appropriate for elementary aged students (though....I don't see a problem with a parent showing this to his/her own elementary aged child), but it's definitely appropriate for upper middle school and high school students.

Check out the video and the NYTimes blog to inform yourself and your students!

Cool Tools for Schools

If you've ever tried in desperation to hammer a nail with a shoe or tighten a screw with a butter knife, you understand that the right tools can make all the difference.

Web 2.0 Cool Tools for School is perhaps the most comprehensive listing of technology tools I've seen, broken down into categories like "Music," "Writing,""Presentation," and 'Collaborative." The "Creativity" category, for example, is broken down into subcategories like Games, Simulators, Classroom Activities, Animations and even "Create-your-own-Activity."

If you've been trying to include more differentiated instruction into your classroom, these sites will prove invaluable. Your high-ability learner will find endless, challenging activities (Scratch computer programming, anyone?). Perhaps a resource student would like to see her work turned into a 3-D online book? There is also an excellent Teacher Resources page.

The only drawback is the sheer number of incredible tools available- I believe there are over 100 (!) Imaging Tools alone. The site provides an A-Z listing of the tools and links, but needs to allow a way to more easily search for what you need.

As it stands now, you'll want to allow yourself an hour (or ten?) to explore all the site has to offer. It will be time well spent.

List of Web 2.0 tools

It is always a treat to find links to great web 2.0 tools that are first and foremost, easy to incorporate into class, and secondly, easy for me and my students to use.

I came across this first short list of Web 2.0 tools, broken out by grade, that are specified for the English and Language Arts realm (K-12) and thought I'd share. Of course you don't have to be in those content areas to use and benefit from them though!

I liked the bubbl tool for online brainstorming - easy, fun, and worked well with my kids!

The Acapela tool/site would be great for an English OR foreign language class...

For those of you who are looking for a more extensive list, here is a link to the top 100 Web 2.0 tools of 2011, according to edudemic.com

I KNOW there are some tools on there that you can use in your classroom. Give some a try!

Featured Blog: Film English

I stumbled across this blog tonight: Film English via Richard Byrne's blog. The Film English blog won a 2011 EduBlog award for Best Individual Blog, so I had to check it out. Let me tell you, it's incredible! The blog boasts a diverse amount of short films that all teach unique ideas: critical thinking, developing passions, creativity, social justice, human rights, writing, empathy, grammar, vocabulary, conservation, ecology...I could go on and on. Not only does each post contain multiple short video clips and images, each post contains step by step lesson plans for how to utilize this in the classroom. Posts are labeled by age appropriateness and difficulty. This teacher is committed to using film creatively to promote critical thinking and language acquisition. I can't wait to use a few of these in my own classes!

Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus

ESU 16 has signed its schools up for a subscription to a wonderful new resource, http://www.visualthesaurus.com.

The site is difficult to describe- it's a dynamic combination of blogs, word maps, "Word of the Day," teacher topics, lesson plans, headlines and much, much more. As long as you are using the site on the school network, you will not need to log into the web page. If you- or your students- need to use the site from home, please contact Susan Krab to see about setting up an account.

If you love words and language, you owe it to yourself to take a moment and check out this website!

Great for Students AND your own Kids

At times I tend to be an NPR (National Public Radio) junkie (exciting I know), and I often get great ideas from their programs. Yesterday at lunch I came across a new program NPR created to celebrate kids' books. As I investigated further, I thought to myself, "This would be great for grade school and middle school reading, but also for those of us with kids at home!" So I thought I'd share.

It's called The Back-Seat Book Club. Starting in October on the PBS show All Things Considered, a new children's book and author will be featured each month. You can choose to read the book with your class or child/children, or you can go the NPR.org website for a link to the author's site where you can listen to the book online for free. You then have the option to join in the conversation with that book's author. Students can write the author and tell him or her what they thought about the book or ask the author questions about the book - a great way to get students and kids thinking and talking about what they've read.

I'm going to try to incorporate this into my daily Drop and Read time with my students. Perhaps you could try this in your classroom, or give it a go at home with your own kiddos. Just turn off the TV, sit, and listen together for 10 or 15 minutes in the evening. Give it a try!

Book Reviews: For Students, By Students

Looking for a way to spark enthusiasm in middle-high school readers? Check out this blog of book reviews written by Logan High School students in Logan, West Virginia. I'm looking forward to having my students get on and read reviews to help them find books that interest them. I've had the great privilege of meeting their teacher, Laura Baisden who is also the director of the Coalfield Writer's Satellite and co-director of the Marshall University Writing Project, at a few conferences I attended last school year. She is an incredible teacher who is always willing to share resources---thanks Laura!

Tween/Teen Tribune

Tween/Teen Tribune is a fantastic news website specifically geared for junior high-high school students that presents high interest news stories arranged into categories so it's easy for students to find a story that interests them. Teachers and students can comment on stories, publish their own stories (and we all know that writing for an audience causes students to invest more!), and take quizzes over the news stories.

How it works: Teachers create classrooms and students add themselves to the classroom. Then when a student adds a comment to a story, the comment is sent to the teacher's approval queue for the teacher to approve or delete. It's a great way to immerse students in non-fiction at an accessible reading level.

I'd like to give a shout out to Pam Abbott from Progress Elementary who sent me an email regarding a sweet feature in Tween/Teen Tribune: parents can be added as readers to teachers' classrooms. They only have to be added once, and then they can read all comments posted by students in the class. What a great way for parents to stay informed and be a part of their child's education!

If you're interested, check out Tween Tribune--specifically, their Top 10 Lesson Plans page.